Little Red Bird
by Wolf in the Walls
Summary: ...I pulled Yami close to me and cried under the branches of the willow tree. That's where Ryou found me hours later...


Little Red Bird  
  
Disclaimer: If I owned Yu-Gi-Oh, then would I be writing a disclaimer?  
  
The arid air is heavy With hate and a question Hangs in the haze- When will you rage?  
  
@@@@@@@  
  
It was the change of seasons. Spring was dead but summer had not yet begun, and the dark one had not yet studied me as I stood on the porch in my summer outfit. Yami Yugi-finally separated from Yugi Muto-was the dark one. That was one of my many names for him. To this reincarnated pharaoh, this new world was a rather strange and wondrous place full of secrets and magic to explore. I gave him credit. He was 335 and he was sealed in the Millennium Puzzle most of the time and had no contact with the outside world. He was cute...  
  
And oh my god was he thin.  
  
I could span his waist with my hands and there would be room left over. Well, as Kaylynn Pegasus said,  
  
"Anorexia and banishment are not the same thing."  
  
Oh well.  
  
Anyways.  
  
The willow tree twenty yards from the house never looked so sad.  
  
If I only had known.  
  
The summer was warm and welcoming as I stepped out of the school and headed home. Yami was waiting for me-like always. I had scarcely changed into comfortable clothes and stepped outside when Yami took my hand and led me on the path to what would be called Evangelion. He stopped at a shack next to a pond. I blinked.  
  
"It's a place to study and read. You're always complaining about how loud and noisy it is. So I hunted around and found this."  
  
The shack seemed rather decrepit and forbidding on the outside. But that all changed once I stepped in and looked around. Yami had set up a table and a couple chairs. I spied a door and of course-walked through. Yami jumped down at me and latched onto my back. I threw him into the pond. Then we laughed.  
  
"Ryou says there's a storm coming-a hurricane."  
  
I stopped laughing and explained it to him-I knew he was going to ask. He stared at me, wide-eyed.  
  
"This thing is capable of leveling a town and it's going to hit us!?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Many days after wards, he was surprised to see how little damage it did. I then explained that it was also very unpredictable.  
  
It must have been at lunch the next day when Yami pointed outside at the willow tree. I looked, and saw a small red bird sitting in it. Yami, Ryou and I ran outside and stared. The little red bird chirped at us twice and tried to fly towards us. Its flight was short lived as it died before it reached us.  
  
"Come on everyone." I said, herding Ryou inside.  
  
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Yami cup the little bird in his hands and walk around back to bury it.  
  
It was about a week later, when I had my own little red bird. Yami Yugi and I were out on the lake in the middle of the swamp in a rowboat. The clouds were black, and the storm was coming in fast. I paddled until we were three feet from shore before we both abandoned ship and ran. The storm caught us, and overtook us. The rain stung like needles and the angry roar of thunder shouted at us from overhead. The storm was determined to claim one of us.  
  
I didn't see Yami drop behind, but I could hear him. His voice...full of terror.  
  
"Anthy! Don't leave me Anthy!!!"  
  
Then, his voice was gone. I stopped, rain pelting me like pebbles. I stopped and waited. Ten minutes passed and there was no one in the relentless onslaught called a storm. I went back for him.  
  
I found Yami Yugi under a willow tree. He was curled up in a little ball when I found him. I shook him gently.  
  
"Yami, come on. Let's go home." I said.  
  
He didn't move.  
  
"Yami, this isn't funny. Come on." I said, shaking him harder.  
  
He rolled onto his back, and I gasped. There were three long slashes across his chest. Blood trickled out of the corner of his mouth and tears streaked through two cuts on his face.  
  
Then  
  
I knew.  
  
I pulled him close to me, under the shelter of the willow tree. The storm seemed to laugh at me as I did so. It took one of us. My love.  
  
I pulled him close and cried, holding my little red bird.  
  
That's where Ryou, Yugi, and Bakura found me some time later. 


End file.
